Introduction

Summary

Over the 1998–2005 period Argentina experienced grave economic problems, and its emergence from them necessitated radical cultural, political and economic change. The transformations that took place had a heavy impact on society, and impinged upon discourses of national, cultural and class identity. The main aim of this book is to explore the cinematic representations of this crisis. The focus will be on the ways the fictional cinema of the time showed and inflected the transformations Argentine society was going through, and the dialogue it established with its mostly local, middle-class audience. By re-situating film production in its cultural and political contexts and by examining how these cultural productions engaged with contemporary themes, this study will both reappraise arthouse films made by younger directors and give attention to films often viewed as commercial and as ‘only entertainment’, and so otherwise neglected due to their alleged lack of aesthetic value.

Establishing a period of study always demands some arbitrary boundaries. The year 1998 has been widely accepted as a landmark in recent Argentine film history. By then the work of important young filmmakers had begun to reach cinema-goers, and the term ‘New Argentine Cinema’ started to be widely accepted. Following seven years of political, economic and social upheaval, which was amply depicted in the cinema of the time, by 2005 the country had experienced a change of epoch. That year in particular bore witness to a number of events that signalled dramatic changes in the political and economic order governing the country and its relations with the region and the world. On the one hand, Argentina paid off its debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Carried out in tandem with the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ Da Silva (2003–2010), this act was to represent a move away from a political culture dominated by neoliberal economic ideology. On the other hand, the Supreme Court of Justice declared the unconstitutionality of two laws that had protected the military from charges of crimes against humanity committed during the years of dictatorship. Besides the huge economic and social changes Argentine society had experienced since the early 2000s, these events by themselves marked a radical move away from institutions that had defined the Argentina of the 1990s.

Those familiar with contemporary Latin American cinema may recognise the dominant narrative concerning New Argentine Cinema.